What Happened to Monday

Tommy Wirkola’s 2017 film puts seven sisters behind one identity in a future where a one-child rule is enforced, each allowed outdoors only on the weekday she is named after. The script was first written for seven brothers. Wirkola wanted to work with Noomi Rapace, proposed turning the siblings into women, and the picture was built on that swap. Everything therefore rests on one performer delivering seven parts, and the weak point shows: the sisters are told apart mostly by hair and wardrobe rather than by writing, so a late betrayal lands without the tensions that should precede it. A Belgian, French and American co-production, it was shot in Romania over ninety-four days on a budget of about twenty million dollars. For the first two months Rapace was alone on set, playing to green screens, tennis balls and markers, with doubles standing in where the sisters meet. Netflix carried it in the United States, Britain and Latin America while Europe and Asia got a cinema release, in most places titled Seven Sisters. A good fit if you want to see how the frames holding all seven are assembled and can give much of the 123 minutes to setup. Not for anyone who wants the sisters separated by writing rather than costume, or the betrayal grown out of character.